10 months ago
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Christian Ziegler was pushed out as chair of the Republican Party of Florida following weeks of pressure from fellow party members to step down from his high profile position amid an investigation that he raped a woman.
His ouster, during a closed-door gathering of party members in Tallahassee, was confirmed Monday by two people who attended the meeting.
Ziegler has maintained that the sexual encounter he had with the woman who leveled the rape accusations against him was consensual. He and his wife, Moms for Liberty cofounder and Sarasota County school board member Bridget Ziegler, also acknowledged to police that they had been in a three-way sexual encounter a year earlier with the alleged victim, per a search warrant affidavit.
The salacious revelation of the three-way opened the couple up to allegations of hypocrisy since both espouse traditional family values. The details fueled calls for both Zieglers to step down from their respective positions and has caused a massive headache for the party, which is trying to organize and fundraise during a presidential election year.
Ziegler has kept a low profile since party members stripped him of his powers and salary on Dec. 17. Ziegler started his role overseeing the party in February.
Evan Power, Florida GOP’s vice chair, has been leading the party during Ziegler’s suspension and announced Dec. 19 that he was running to replace him.
Ziegler resisted calls to resign for the last two months, even as Gov. Ron DeSantis, Florida legislative leaders, U.S. Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio and U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz urged him to step aside. Former President Donald Trump, who lives in Florida part time, didn’t weigh in on what he thought Ziegler should do. The Zieglers had been among Florida’s political power couples. Bridget Ziegler stepped back from Moms for Liberty in 2021 but she has refused to relinquish her role as board member on the Sarasota School Board despite calls from colleagues to step down.
She also is still a board member of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, the DeSantis-appointed governing body for the area surrounding Walt Disney World. DeSantis and the GOP-supermajority Legislature overhauled the area after the parks entertainment giant objected to a school curriculum law restricting LGBTQ+ instruction in public schools, one critics have called “Don’t Say Gay.”
The Republican Party of Florida has steadily overtaken Democrats in the state since DeSantis took office in both registration numbers and in elected statewide positions. Republicans now have supermajorities in the Legislature and hold every Cabinet position and, as of mid-December, have a nearly 700,000 voter registration advantage over Democrats. Despite the registration successes, some Republican county leaders who wanted Ziegler out said they’d been frustrated with his lackluster fundraising and worried about losing their grip on the state. They’d already faced internal drama as some members vocally sided with Trump over DeSantis for the 2024 presidential nomination.
In September, top officials in the Republican Party of Florida, under pressure from Trump supporters, voted to remove a provision in its state bylaws that required any candidate seeking to be on the March 19 presidential primary ballot to pledge loyalty to the eventual GOP nominee.
English (US)